1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated vehicle engine/transmission control apparatus adapted to control an automotive vehicle provided with an engine whose operating speed is variable, and an automatic transmission arranged to receive an output of the engine.
2. Discussion of Related Art
For controlling an automotive vehicle provided with an automatic transmission arranged to receive an output of an engine, there is proposed a control apparatus to control operations of hydraulically operated frictional coupling devices used in an automatic transmission to effect shifting actions of the automatic transmission, while reducing the operating speed of the engine.
For instance, such a vehicle control apparatus is arranged to positively reduce the operating speed of the engine by establishing slipping or partially engaged states of hydraulically frictional coupling devices such as clutches and brakes in the process of a shift-up action of the automatic transmission. In this case, the vehicle suffers from a shifting shock of the automatic transmission due to an increase of the inertia of the engine as a result of a decrease of the engine speed.